Skype and destroy SIP?

If India and China who have skirmished for decades and still bury the hatchet, I am not surprised that the leading proponent of open telecom standards and stupid network, Martin Geddes can fall prey to the charms of Skype. “The number of open SIP nodes addressable via ENUM (or otherwise) is miniscule compared to the proprietary Skype virtual network,” he writes. To paraphrase him, SIP gang is really whistling in the wind. Martin says Skype is like Coke, while SIP is like coffee. Finding a Coke machine is easier than brewing coffee. “SIP is history as far as the future of voice is concerned. Get over it,” he says.

Good points he makes but skips over the other “non technology” realities. Martin says if you have your VoIP app, who you gonna call. I think it is the reverse which is more true. Skype still fails the mom test. Moms are the ones who are using the phones that actually generate revenues. The economic model is still suspect, especially for near foreseeable future when calls need to be terminated on a PSTN network. If there was even an iota of truth to Telmex blocking Skype.com, then we know that there are going to be even more problems. The networks would have no problem in shutting down Skype. FCC won’t step in to save Skype. Unlike Vonage.

The Internet has already been broken by the introduction of symmetric NATs. Some countries have them in their ISPs for other purposes like monitoring. Clients belonging to those ISPs will require media relay points (not withstanding what Skypers tell).

Bottom line: We have to keep an eye on introduction of symmetric NATs as well, not just port blocking.

Craig, the powers that be have as much chancing of killing Skype through blocking and similar tactics as they do of stoping file sharing (illegal or otherwise). You cannot completely stop P2P without breaking the internet. Some people may very well want to do that, but infrastructure keeps getting cheaper and if the big boys don’t provide what people want, they leave the door open for new entrants.

Some ISPs have resorted to blocking access to the Skype.com home page. But the program has been mirrored and hosted on other web sites, so that’s just a minor impediment.

Also, while Skype used to require logging into a specific login server at a certain IP address, new versions route their login requests through super nodes. I have seen nothing substantiated about ISPs being able to block Skype calls.

For me the most noteworthy quote from Geddes is “Yes my dears, even in P2P voice thereâ€™s a pile of trust, directory and routing stuff that some people are going to want to do behind private barricades.” Now he tells us!

The Piper is changing the tune. The question is whether the children will continue to follow.